The Prosecutor General's Office told Reuters on May 24 that Ukraine is investigating Belarus' potential role in the illegal transfer of Ukrainian children from Russian-occupied territories.
Reuters cited a report published by exiled Belarusian opposition members alleging that 2,150 Ukrainian children, including orphans between the ages of six and 15, had been forcibly relocated to recreation camps and sanatoriums on Belarusian territory.
Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko is accused in the report of personally facilitating the forced relocation of Ukrainian orphans to Belarusian territory, which would implicate him in war crimes.
PACE adopted a resolution on April 27 recognizing Lukashenko as being potentially complicit in Russia’s forced deportation of Ukrainian children amid its full-scale war.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants on March 17 for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin as well as Maria Lvova-Belova, the Russian official who has allegedly been overseeing the forced deportations of tens of thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia.
More than 19,000 children have been abducted to Russia, according to a Ukrainian national database, while thousands of others remain unaccounted for.
Daria Shulzhenko
(Updated: )
